


eleven months, five days, and nineteen hours

by Fatale (femme)



Category: White Collar
Genre: Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal leaves on a Monday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eleven months, five days, and nineteen hours

Eleven months, five days, and nineteen hours  
Peter/Elizabeth/Neal  
WC: 4670  
NC-17  
A/N: Future!Fic. After Neal gets his anklet off. Disregards 4x16, since it was written before that. Ha! It could still happen. Hush, don't ruin my illusions!

 

Neal leaves on a Monday, to claps on the back from FBI agents over a box of cupcakes everyone chipped in to buy. Lots of _It was nice to work with you_ -s and _take care of yourself_ -s. There’s a loud cheer as Diana removes Neal’s ankle tracker for the last time and people crowd around Neal, shake his hand, pat him good-naturedly and pretend they were rooting for him the whole time.

Peter doesn't join in. It’s 6:45 pm, winter, and the air is cold in the office, despite the heat. Central heating is notoriously fickle in large buildings like this - the rooms are always either boiling hot or freezing cold and Peter prefers freezing, because it explains the way his hands tremor when he takes a sip of his coffee.

Neal’s smiling hugely, hands waving in the air as he enthralls the agents with a story, until he catches Peter watching him, drops his arms and hurriedly extracts himself from the group clustered around him.

Heart in his throat, Peter watches Neal climb the stairs for the last time.

“I-” Peter says and stops, unsure of what to say. He’d ask Neal to stay, but he’s kept him here for four years already and he doesn’t have the words to keep Neal from leaving or the courage to say what he really means. Neal is a traveler, a wanderer at heart, and only a tracking anklet, a promise, and some careful law-bending has kept him in New York for this long.

“I’ll miss you,” Neal says, mouth pulled tight, determinedly looking somewhere over Peter’s shoulder, towards the window, the sunset casting a hazy, orange glow.

“Don’t do that,” Peter says, because he can’t stand for their last words to each other to be so trivial, so unimportant. To his own ears, his voice sounds weak and begging, but to Neal, well, Peter’s never really understood what Neal was thinking. He had always known this day was coming, mentally prepared himself for it, but now that it’s arrived, he feels hollowed, turned inside out and fumbling.

“All right,” Neal says with a small nod, uncertain and shaky. “Goodbye, Peter. I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. Too much. It’s all been…too much.”

“It was just enough,” Peter says, and it feels like a confession. “You were worth it.” He feels his insides twist up, but he means it, he’d do it all again even if it meant standing in this exact same spot a thousand times saying goodbye to Neal over and over again.

Neal’s eyes are too bright and slightly glassy, and the unfairness of it is like a punch to the gut, because Neal gets to look like it hurts to say goodbye to a friend, but Peter feels his heart breaking apart inside his chest.

Neal grabs him then, pulls him into a surprisingly rough hug, and whispers in his ear, fierce and sad, “I’ll miss you, you have to believe that. God, I‘ll miss you so much.”

“I do,” Peter says and rubs the back of Neal’s neck, the warmth and the pulse jumping wildly beneath the flat of his hand and he memorizes this moment, burns it into his brain like a brand so that when Neal is long gone, Peter will always have this.

 

***

 

Peter dreams about him sometimes. He dreams of Neal charming girls, making love with beautiful blonde women and stunning brunettes. Or even young, dark men, with foreign words tangled up in-between their tongues and clothes.

Maybe Neal’s king of his own private island, or forging Monets and stealing priceless artifacts, dressed in all black.

He imagines Neal standing at the top of the world, tipping his head back, smiling, and drinking it in. And all of it feels right, _good_ even, so long as he’s free.

On these nights, El wakes him and wraps her arms around Peter, murmurs soft words that wash over and through him until he settles back down. She never asks him what he’s dreaming about, but he thinks she knows.

 

***

 

It’s cold outside, there’s a snowstorm coming and Christmas lights blink from every surface. His breath comes out in short, small puffs and he remembers that this used to be his favorite time of the year.

It’s been eleven months of no phone calls, postcards or letters. Peter’s fingers itch. He could find Neal, if he really wanted to. He’s done it at least three times before. But that was when Neal was a wanted felon and this is now, when Neal simply isn’t here, and there’s no law against that. Peter can’t even begin to imagine how he would justify the allocation of resources for a massive manhunt for an ex-con sipping Mai Tais in Malibu.

But Peter can’t help the way his heart speeds up every time he sees a guy in a hat or the way he absently scans every crowd he’s in, searching, always on the lookout.

“Oh, Peter,” Elizabeth sighs, sounding incredibly sad. She’d been talking and Peter feels a wave of shame that he wasn’t paying attention again, hasn’t been fully present for months now.

“What?” Peter asks, trying to pretend like they both don’t know that his palms are slick with sweat at the brief glimpse of a man in a fitted suit in the crowd in front of them.

“Are you going to get him?”

Peter doesn’t have to ask what _him_ she’s referring to. “He doesn’t want to be found. If he did, he would have contacted me.”

“Yeah, right,” Elizabeth acknowledges easily. “Or maybe, he doesn’t think you want him here. His job is done, he’s served his time. Why should he have stayed?”

“I want him here,” Peter says. “I’m here. You’re here. Shouldn’t that have been enough?”

Elizabeth snakes her arms around his and leans her head against his shoulder. “You know Neal. You can’t grunt at him and expect him to get what you’re saying. You have to tell him you want him, that you’ll never stop wanting him no matter how much he screws up. You have to say these things, keep saying them.” She sighs and Peter gets the distinct impression that he’s disappointed her somehow. “Oh, hon, you didn't even ask him to stay.”

This is a hugely uncomfortable conversation to be having. Neal can’t replace Elizabeth, apples and oranges, they can’t even be compared. Peter has no clue what to say, how to do this, he just knows that when Neal left, nothing was as good or even the same.

“El-”

“I miss him terribly,” she says simply. She looks up at Peter with a knowing smile, impossibly kind and forgiving. “And I can’t stand to see you like this.”

“I love you,” Peter says suddenly, heart full to bursting with it. She smiles wider, blue eyes crinkling at the corners and Peter wants to kiss them, all the small, fine lines in her face, the mole on her neck. She’s perfect and radiant and beautiful.

“Go find our boy,” she says.

 

***

 

He asks Diana for help, and yes, this is strictly off the books. This would be a personal favor, not a boss giving an order.

Diana regards at him silently for a moment, evaluating, before agreeing. “Your house, tonight?”

“That would be great,” Peter says, surprised she wants to start so soon, but grateful. He reminds himself to get Diana a hell of a Christmas gift this year.

“We’ll find him, boss,” she says, with that secret sneaky kind way she has about her. “You provide the food and I'll be the muscle.”

 

***

 

They spread out a map over the dining room table, amid empty boxes of takeout and paper napkins and Peter almost smiles to think than this has been the fourth time he’s had to scour the globe for Neal Caffrey. And each time, they’ve found him. There’s no reason to think this time will be different.

Diana did a little digging earlier and Neal Caffrey doesn’t show up anywhere, like he’d vanished into thin air the moment he stepped out of the FBI building. She has three of Neal’s most likely aliases and the last time they’ve been used.

They work through the night, each drinking more coffee than should be physically possible. Elizabeth brings them snacks in the evening and makes them go to bed at 3 am.

They do it again the next night and the next, circling the countries without extradition laws because hey, old habits die hard and Peter has serious doubts that Neal’s walking the straight and narrow, working 9 to 5 for minimum wage. They cross out the countries that Neal has already been to with burned aliases, and put bold red question marks next to the ones that Peter can’t imagine Neal enjoying. He’s always been a creature of comfort.

Diana looks at the map strangely and says, “Didn’t you backpack through Nepal on a break during college?”

Peter blinks. He’d told Diana about that over five years ago. He never thought she’d recall that.

“Do you remember the photo Neal kept in his desk? Top right drawer, tucked in between his ties. Sometimes he’d take it out and look at it.”

Of course Peter knows it, he’s had it on his desk propped against the silver frame with the picture of him and El in it. He’s stared at it daily for eleven months, five days and 19 hours. It was the only thing Neal left in his desk - and then it hits Peter like a ton of bricks and he feels so, so incredibly stupid.

He grabs his jacket. “I’m going into the office,” he tells Diana.

“Want me to come with?” she asks.

“No, I want you to go home and get some rest.” He pauses, searches for an adequate way to thank her and comes up empty-handed. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Diana smiles slightly, teasing, to take the sting from the truth of her words, “Find Caffrey and stop coming into the office looking like hell.”

 

***

 

Peter holds the photo with shaky fingers. He recognizes the Himalayas now, how could he not, and maybe he didn’t really let himself look hard enough because it hurt that this was the only thing left of Neal’s. Everything that Neal was seemed to vanish, ferreted away by Mozzie or put into storage by June, and the city moved on with quiet indifference.

He’d told Neal about Nepal on a stakeout one night, a couple of years ago. Peter told him about the purity of camping out under the stars, the beautiful simplicity of the people and places he’d seen, to distract Neal from whining about his legs cramping, and what was that smell, and how this music was an affront to his ears.

“It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been, the sense of freedom was incredible.”

“One day, I’ll go there,” Neal said absently, grabbing Peter’s binoculars out of his hands. “My turn.” He peered through the binoculars for a few minutes, huffed quietly, tossed the binoculars back to Peter and started fiddling with the radio.

“Tell me about all the ladies.”

“There were no ladies.”

“Peter,” Neal gently chided. “Of course there were ladies. If not, make something up so I don’t die of boredom.”  
“Well, there was one…”

“Really?” Neal asked, immediately interested.

“No, of course not.”

“Why do you suck so much?” Neal asked evenly. “You’re no fun.”

“Yes, well,” Peter said, “I’ll let you trade me in for another FBI agent that wants you. Oh, wait.”

Neal rolled his eyes. “Alright, already. Go ahead and give me a hard time now, but I promise you, you’re going to miss me when I’m gone.”

 

***

 

Peter makes a few phone calls and he finds an American ex-pat fitting Neal’s description staying in the most expensive resort, of course. He buys an overpriced postcard from one of those tourist trap sidewalk stands, a glossy photo of New York on one side. He flips it over and simply writes: _Come Home._

Neal is a free man. Peter’s not going to hop on a plane and drag him back, no matter how much he wants to. So he drops the postcard in the mail and waits.

The responding postcard comes on a Friday, and says: _Be there in a week._

Peter immediately recognizes the loopy, careless script. It’s nice handwriting, eye-catching in a way that Peter’s chicken scratch isn’t and he thinks it's a shame that Neal spends so much time forging other people’s signatures, since his own is so nice. Peter brings the postcard inside and tapes it to the fridge.

Saturday and Sunday drag by and Peter jumps every time the wind blows, nearly crawls out of his skin when the phone rings. Monday and Tuesday are hell. He’s on edge, and he snaps at Diana, curses at the coffeepot and takes the whole damn thing apart and reassembles it before noon.

Later, El rubs soothing circles on his back and hushes him like a baby.

By Friday, Peter can barely think. El reminds him to eat and Diana takes care of his paperwork, discreetly bringing folders into his office for him to sign off on the completed work. By the time this is over, Peter’s going to owe Diana a _car_.

Saturday, the doorbell rings.

 

***

 

It’s been eleven months, twelve days and 11 hours. Neal Caffrey is standing at his door, head cocked to the side and hands jammed deep into his pockets.

“Got your postcard,” he says by way of greeting.

This time, Peter can’t think, won’t let himself over-analyze, because Peter wanted Neal to come home to him and Neal jumped on a plane and came.

Peter grabs him, drags him into the house and closes the front door. He pushes Neal back roughly and kisses him. He feels Neal’s surprise against his mouth, can taste the hesitation, and the exact moment when it melts into something else and Neal surrenders. Their lips move against each other, slick and soft. Peter’s hands spasm in Neal’s hair, fisting it roughly and then smoothing it back from his face, alternately hungry and tender, the urgency and need making him clumsy even though he wants to take his time, savor this moment, because they’ll only have this first kiss once. Neal makes a small sound of need in the back of his throat that Peter swallows whole, and wants more. It’s so good and perfect, it hurts.

It’s Neal that breaks the kiss. “I guess you missed me?” he asks shyly, cheeks slightly flushed. It’s such an unexpectedly pretty look on him, that Peter wants to follow that blush down, see where it ends.

“El will be home soon,” he says and sees Neal’s expression flicker. “She knows,” he rushes to assure Neal. “She told me to find you.”

Neal still looks uncertain.

“Do you have anyplace to stay?” Peter asks just as he hears the front door open. Neal scurries out of the way just in time to avoid a collision.

“Neal!” Elizabeth says when she seems him, eyes wide and bright. “Oh my god!” She drops her bags of groceries on the floor and they spill out everywhere. She lunges into his arms and Neal catches her, with a happy, uncomplicated smile.

“I missed you,” Neal says softly.

Elizabeth goes up on her toes and kisses him soft and sweet on the mouth. “I want-” She licks her bottom lip nervously. “Are you here for us?”

“I don’t know,” Neal says, looking helpless. “I just needed to see you both again.”

Elizabeth looks at Peter, accusing. “You didn’t talk to him about it?"

Peter puts his hands up in mock surrender. “He just got here. I haven’t, you know, had time to draft up a contract and lay down ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Neal asks, sounding faint.

Elizabeth looks up at Neal, shakes her head. “Ignore him. There are no ground rules. Only - we’ve both missed you. And now that you’re here, you could stay with us, you know, if you wanted.”

“For how long?” Neal asks, deceptively neutral. And if Peter’s ever heard a loaded question before - this one’s loaded, cocked and ready to kill. The next few words out of their mouths have to count or Neal’s going to laugh, turn this into a joke and everything’s going to go back to how it was, nearly right but shaped all wrong.

“For as long as you want us,” Elizabeth says. Peter can’t help but envy her ability to say the right thing at the right time, to state her needs and wants with honesty and without embarrassment and he’s deeply, stupidly grateful that she loves him.

“All right,” Neal says with a shuddering breath. “Okay, yeah.” He leans forward again and she meets his lips, grabs his shirt and turns their kiss deeper and dirty. Peter had wondered if he’d feel jealous at this moment, but watching them together, knowing he’s about to have them both sends a jagged spike of pleasure through him.

“I’ve wanted to do that from the first minute I met you,” she confesses afterwards, voice just a little husky. “You taste like coffee and mints and Peter.”

Neal rocks back, dazed and flushed. “Plane. Terrible coffee,” he explains half-heartedly. “Glad I didn’t have the cheese.”

“I'm so happy you’re here,” Elizabeth says, warm and heartfelt, infusing the simple phrase with a wealth of meaning. “I’ll give you and Peter a few minutes alone.” She scoops up the groceries and takes them into the kitchen.

“I, uh. Huh,” Neal says.

“I told you we talked,” Peter pointed out. “I found your photo.”

Neal nods with a hint of a proud smile. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

“Why didn’t you contact me?” Peter asks a little desperately. If Neal really wants this - and Peter can scarcely believe he does - then why run, why leave when they could have had this past year?

Neal shrugs and ducks his head. “I was, uh, hoping you’d find it and come and get me. You know, if you wanted me.”

“I want you,” Peter says, voice shattered, full of hope. “I’ve always wanted you.” He grabs Neal again, pulls him close, kisses him, opened-mouth and hungry. Peter makes no attempt to quiet the low sounds of pleasure, of desperate want he can hear himself making. “Bedroom,” he says, breathless, blood thrumming just beneath his skin.

“Bedroom,” Neal agrees. “El?”

“Do you want her there?” Peter questions. “Because I know she’d love to be, but she would let us have this first time, you know. She’d do that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Neal says with a wicked little smile. “I want her there.”

“She’ll be glad to hear it.” Peter calls to her, hears her answering heels clicking against the hardwood behind them.

 

***

 

Neal and Peter barely make it to the bedroom before Peter’s fumbling at Neal’s buttons, fingers trying and failing to undo them. He curses softly. Peter wants this to be perfect, because this is more than he ever dreamed he’d have and people never get everything they want and he is so, so afraid he’ll wake up at any moment.

“Let me,” El cuts in, voice soft and amused. She gently swats Peter’s hands away and undoes the buttons, small hands deft and steady. She pushes Neal’s shirt back over his shoulders impatiently.

Peter’s breath hitches, and he traces Neal’s collar bones with his fingers as Neal unthinkingly leans into the touch, eyes closed and naked pleasure on his face.

Elizabeth is undressing down to her underwear next to him. She unceremoniously kicks off her shoes and Peter hears then skitter away, hears the bed creak as she lays down facing them.

“I left,” Neal begins softly, eyes closed, face serious like he’s telling Peter a painful secret dragged out against his will, “because I wanted this. I wanted this but I didn’t - I didn’t think I’d ever get it. Do you know what it's like to want something that badly? And you can't have it, can’t steal it. It’s out of your reach and burns you up and tears you apart.”

“You stupid ass,” Peter says fondly. He leans down to kiss the graceful swoop of Neal’s collarbones, pale and fragile. He brushes kisses against Neal’s neck, his jaw, the soft curve of his ear. He reaches for Neal’s pants, unzips them, and hesitates. “You want this?”

Neal’s breath is short and gasping. “Yes, Peter, please, please.”

Peter’s cock jumps at the need in his voice. He takes Neal’s cock in his hands and strokes him slow and firm, just to hear the way Neal’s breath hitches. “I have,“ Peter says, voice raw and barely recognizable, “I have wanted this for so long. I’ve always wanted this, wanted you.”

Neal’s eyes are still closed, but his long, dark eyelashes flutter, casting shadows, throwing his face into sharp relief. Peter feels like he might drop to his knees, offer Neal anything and everything in the world to just always look like this. He strokes him faster, harder, as Neal rocks into his fist. Neal’s face scrunches up and his mouth opens in a silent ‘o’ of pleasure as he comes in Peter’s hand, against his leg. Neal drops his head onto Peter’s chest with a soft shuddering sigh, presses sweaty kisses to his neck and Peter thinks he could fall in the love with the way Neal’s lower lip trembles against his skin.

“Sorry, sorry,” Neal mumbles. “It was. Way too good. It’s been a while for me.”

“Bed,” Peter suggests softly. He’s aware of his own erection pressing uncomfortably against his jeans and wetness cooling on his thigh. El gets up, helps him pull Neal’s clothes off and then his own. He notices her breath is harsh and unsteady, and wonders if he could make Neal and El come at the same time. “Take your bra off,” he tells her. “Then your panties. I want you to lay back on the bed touch yourself while you watch us.”

Her breath hitches as she complies, pupils blown, and dusky nipples peaked. She scoots backwards on the bed and Peter lays out Neal next to her, drowsy and relaxed.

Peter smoothes a hand over his chest, his jumping muscles, his soft, vulnerable cock. It’s obscene, how gorgeous he looks spread out, legs splayed.

“Neal,” Peter asks, “can I?” He’s suddenly nervous to ask. It’s one thing to give a hand job, but he’s asking for a lot more.

“Yes,” Neal breaths, eyes slitted and impossibly blue. “Do it. Anything.”

Peter leans over, opens the drawer with the lube inside, squirts some on fingers. He spreads Neal’s bent legs further apart, presses one finger into the shadowy crevice. Neal hisses, “God, yes, more.”

Elizabeth grunts softly beside him, breasts covered with a light sheen of sweat. “God, Peter. You just, you don’t even know how you two look.”

Peter adds another finger, then another until he feels Neal relax and loosen. He angles his fingers slightly, feels Neal’s ass clench around his fingers, hears Neal’s guttural moan, head thrown back, lips parted and slack. Peter leans forward and licks the sweat collecting above Neal’s lip. “Ready?”

“Fuck, yes,” Neal gasps, sounding a little hysterical.

Peter grabs the lube, slicks some on his cock and tosses the tube onto the floor. He angles his hips and presses in, slowly. It’s so, so tight and impossibly hot and he'll come right now if Neal doesn’t stop making that _sound_.

He hears Elizabeth gasp, can see her legs tremble out of the corner of his eye. And he pushes forward until he’s balls deep and then pulls back until he almost slips out. Neal groans, low and ragged. Peter angles his hips as he pushes back in, and Neal cries out, an incoherent jumble of foreign-sounding curses and encouragement.

“Peter, Peter,” Neal says, softly pleading. “Just do it. I can’t, I don’t think I can come again.”

Peter pushes Neal’s leg up further, nearly to his chest, giving Elizabeth a better view and bites the inside of his thigh hard enough to leave a mark in the morning. He pushes in and pulls back a few times setting a steadily climbing pace, fucking into Neal while the bed creaks beneath them, until his mind dissolves into a mess of heat and sensation and he loses himself completely. “God, Neal, love you. Fuck, love you,” he says incoherently, and comes with a deep thrust and a drawn-out groan.

He pulls out carefully, cock softening and overly sensitive, sees the wet spot on the sheets where his come is leaking out of Neal’s ass and feels a primal, base shiver of pleasure at it.

Neal’s legs flop like they’re made of jelly. “That was, it was-”

Peter cuts him off with a kiss, full-tongued and greedy. “I can’t even tell you," Peter says, helplessly, on his elbows, hovering above Neal. “Can’t even begin to tell you how much you mean to me, what I’d do for you just for this, if you’d just let me see you like this forever." He’s babbling and he can’t stop himself. He’s like this with El sometimes, but she takes it in stride with love and gentle amusement. It feels dangerous to hand this much power to Neal. The absolute honesty of it leaves Peter feeling more than naked; it makes him feel sick, hurt and raw and far too vulnerable.

Peter feels Elizabeth’s hand slide between them, resting on Neal’s stomach, an anchor for him while he’s at sea, awash with fear and love. He twines his fingers with hers and leaves them there.

Neal’s eyes are bright and clear, a strange and unfamiliar tenderness mixed with exasperation. “Love you, too,” he mumbles and rests his hand over theirs.

 

***

 

Peter wakes to the smell of bacon and fresh coffee. The bed is cool and empty beside him and if not for a sharp pain in his side - fucking a man uses a lot of different muscles, he thinks bemusedly - he’d assume last night was a dream.

He pulls on his pants, steps over the crumpled clothes littering the floor, and stops short in the kitchen. El is scrambling eggs, using a spatula to lightly scrape the pan, a plate piled high with bacon next to her. She’s dressed for work - an electric blue dress hugs her curves with a thin patent leather belt cinched at her waist and sensible black pumps to complete the look.

And Neal - Neal’s sitting on the counter naked as the day he was born other than his hat, sitting at a jaunty angle, and eating bacon loudly. He gives Peter a wink. “Took you long enough to wake up,” he says easily, apparently unbothered by his nudity. He looks young, healthy and beautiful and Peter’s heart stutters just a little. His feet kick back and forth, lightly tapping against the cabinets below.

“You should clean that counter when you’re done,” Peter says, feeling foolish as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Neal shoots Peter a wicked smile. “Your mouth has been worse places than this.”

Elizabeth throws back her head and laughs; it’s the kind that makes her stomach shake and her hair tremble. Peter loves the sound of it, feels the warmth of it low in his belly and has to smile, even though he’s embarrassed and uneasy and this is the craziest thing he’s ever seen. He wonders what the neighbors think.

“Good morning, hon,” he says to the room in general, not entirely sure who he’s addressing. But they both incline their heads and he guesses they get the message anyway.

 

 

 

The end.


End file.
